Silk purse time. . .

[SongORoland]

An old geezer who has no tech skill whatsoever gave me a crummy digital self-recording of his singing with acoustic guitar.

Alas, he's incredible as a composer and performer, so I sort of have to save his work in order to put right the ironic twist that his artistry has been 'unsung'.

The recording has a horribly tinny (overly compressed?) quality that I have managed to get sounding much fuller through using an equalizer filter. And I'm going to be overlaying some midi tracks.

The only problem with the audio he gave me that I tweaked into a listenable condition is that when amplified, it strains and distorts at the peaks. It plays okay at the voulme I have it set to. But should anybody else play the recording it could sound horrible if they turn up the volume.

Any idea how to make the recording where it will handle volume changes?

His arthritis is making it hard to get new, cleaner recordings out of him.

Thanks.

[SongORoland]

Okay, so I'm talking to myself. Challenging labors of love can do that to ya.

For anybody who ever has to salvage a bad recording and who doesn't already know this stuff . . . or doesn't have more than Metro and a few basic plug-ins . . .

I have discovered among other things that:

1) au bandpass filter can help with hiss and tinnyness

2) reverb can bridge tiny gaps and masks cracklyness

3) compressor cuts range enough so that it can handle loud playback on various speakers/headphones

4) normalize brings back up the volume after using the filters that cut it

This recording fix may actually work.

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By the way, Jeremy, this is the first time I've really gotten to Metro and you've written it with users using the program in mind.

There are any number of instances during this project where I could have been stopped cold, but you anticipated the problem and had a prompt asking if I wanted it fixed automatically.

A simple example is upon import of a sound file, Metro warned me that the format was incompatible.

Most programs I know of would have had me go change it somewhere else and come back, or it would load it so it sounded off and had me trying to problem solve and kill my momentum.

But Metro asked if I wanted to convert it, and that's it. Done automatically and move forward.

Details like that are most appreciated at 2:00 am when my brain is . . . somewhere around here.

Thanks.

[Scoot]

Rule 1,2,3,4 and 5

** Do not peak or clip the volume of the recording as Digital Distortion is not removeable. **



A compressor could level things out a little and could be unnoticed if not used too harshly.

Normalize can raise everything up. If the maximum volume in the piece is at 75% of the meter, a normalize will take it close to 100% and bring up everything else as well. What out for floor noise and hiss and hums and other nasties.

If a verse is all quiet, a possible gain or normalize over the section could be a trick.


Most of this you probably already know but now you're not talking to yourself.

[SongORoland]

> Rule 1,2,3,4 and 5 ":wink:"

> ** Do not peak or clip the volume of the recording as Digital Distortion > is not removeable. **

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Alas, that's what my original is filled with. So I'm painfully aware of this, tho ir's a practical mantra. ( ( (':shock:') ) )

Oddly enough, I'm finding that there are clean parts of the spectrum that are clean, and emphasizing these areas and diminishing the crackly parts.

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> A compressor could level things out a little and could be unnoticed if not > used too harshly.

> Normalize can raise everything up. If the maximum volume in the piece > is at 75% of the meter, a normalize will take it close to 100% and bring
> up everything else as well. What out for floor noise and hiss and hums
> and other nasties.

============

The original I'm working with is seriously too quiet.

I'm being scrupulous about not exceeding 100 % in Normalize. And then I play it and grab it in another program using a peak limiter. So when I bring it back into Metro, the volume can be increased safely through another normalizing pass. (I can't make sense of the Limiter filter in Metro or I'd just fix it all in Metro.) ':o'

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> If a verse is all quiet, a possible gain or normalize over the section could > be a trick.

============

This doesn't seem to be a big problem. Between Normalize and Peak Limits I'm pretty good with the volume.

It's not perfect, but unless somebody is playing it way loudly on headphones, they won't hear the very subtle remaining problems.

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> Most of this you probably already know but now you're not talking to
> yourself.

=============

Hey, don't assume I know much of anything. I have an ear, but I'm now into new territory. So I appreciate the comments. That little bit of advice made all the difference.

Subtle's indeed the trick. I got from your post that I must be careful to not overdo the filters (like Compressor). I redid everything (again) with a lighter touch and it's getting scary good.

Thanks. ':D'

[Scoot]

Another tidbit that may be handy.......more to do with using something like a reverb rather than cleaning up an original soundtrack:-


If you have 1 track and you wish to add reverb to it, you can just do a quick com 9 and com 0 and drag a reverb across into the track's effect window.
When you pick a reverb like a medium room (in AUMatrixReverb) it may sound too reverby or tinny.

Unlock the padlock below the Dry / Wet faders in the effects window and edge up the Dry signal.
For even more subtle reverb put the dry near 100% and the wet around 50%. You've added a bit of reverb but it don't sound like it's in a garden shed.

[SongORoland]

>> If you have 1 track and you wish to add reverb to it, you can just do a quick com 9 and com 0 and drag a reverb across into the track's effect window.
When you pick a reverb like a medium room (in AUMatrixReverb) it may sound too reverby or tinny.

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You lost me there. . . what's a com 9 and com 0?

Do you know how to appropriate other filters for Metro, such as the ones that are currently showing up in Audio Hijack? Can I put the ones that are AH specific into a general plug-in folder?

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>> Unlock the padlock below the Dry / Wet faders in the effects window and edge up the Dry signal.
For even more subtle reverb put the dry near 100% and the wet around 50%. You've added a bit of reverb but it don't sound like it's in a garden shed.

=========

Heh. I loved the Garden Shed Quartet.

I haven't tried to unlock them till now since I would just slide it to where my ear picked the best sound from what I heard. Now I guess it looks like there'll be a bigger range of choices.

Thanks for your help.

[Scoot]

Com 9 and Com 0 (command 9 and Zero) open the plugins and effects windows and you can drag across. It's 'the old method' to selecting plugins whereas now you can select them out of the graphic editor......but on a track pad you can get the wrong one. Just call me old school.


Plugins need to land in this location:-

harddiskname / library / audio / plugins
then you need to throw them in to folders like VST or Components if they are Audio Units.
A quick method is to alias these folders somewhere.

If the audio hijack ones are VST 2.0 compat. and such like.....they should work elsewhere. The words "highjack specific" may be telling you in reality you can't use them elsewhere....but give it a go.